(December 28, 2016 at 2:56 pm)Secular Elf Wrote: Oh, wait, I was just told by an archaeologist who saw the tomb carvings and read the hieroglyphs that the Egyptians built them as tombs for their pharaohs.  Oh, right, that fact does not mean shit to him.

No one was ever actually found entombed in a pyramid, so that's pretty unlikely. If anything they were probably built for ritual activities corresponding with astrological events. The hieroglyphs appear to be more of a collection of spells and incantations to be used during such ritual activities, kind of like the stations of the cross along the perimeter of a cathedral.

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(December 28, 2016 at 2:56 pm)Secular Elf Wrote: Yes, sue people behind fake news and hold them accountable.

Starting with Dan Rather, right? Get a clue.

William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich explains how manipulative politicians worked to put Hitler in power for their own selfish aims, allowing him to take advantage of a law (in an otherwise very libertarian constitution) giving him complete control of government in an emergency, which was provided when the Reichstag was set on fire and blamed on communists.

There is no law in the USA which would grant the President such power, nor is there the kind of political and economic upheaval that Germany was dealing with at the time. For all of the attention that the POTUS gets, he has far less power than people seem to think. Surely, most of us remember a time when congress held hearings and impeached a President for boning an assistant? Yeah... that's not quite how Hitler rose to power.

(December 28, 2016 at 2:56 pm)Secular Elf Wrote: Yes, sue people behind fake news and hold them accountable.  We are going to have to do more than just that though.  When people become so willing to believe a lie over a fact that facts do not matter to them anymore, you are going to have to do something that gets their attention and snap then out of it.  And when they refuse to snap out of it then you will have to do something more drastic.  They then become too dangerous for the survival of a society to continue to have around.

I suggest that what we need is for Progressives and Secular people to wake up, take these threats very seriously, and join together to form an anti-Conservative movement.  It should be a movement with attitude and teeth, and have more power and influence than the enemy.  Conservatism is that enemy.  It has become a threat to everyone, it is dangerous, and it needs to be put down.  I have ideas for the formation of this movement.  But it will never take off unless people are willing to do the work that is necessary to make it possible.

What we need now more than ever in the Progressive-Secular community is a discussion about exactly this. But we should not take too long.  Time is ticking and the Inauguration is around the corner.

That's some pretty radical thinking there in the first paragraph, and I certainly don't agree with it.  People, unfortunately but necessarily, have a right to be stupid if they choose to.  We do need some laws to protect the rest of us from mass-supidity, but that's easier said than done.  Even if you could get such laws passed, you would have to spell out each possible stupidity and how we are protected from it.  That would have to be written by a bunch of lawyers, who take pride in the cleverness of the loopholes in the documents they prepare and finding the loopholes in the documents others have prepared.  You would have to remove the human element from it completely, so even an ass like Scalia couldn't re-interpret it to say what he wanted it to say.  This is essentially impossible.
What you need instead is a massive public education campaign.  We need to start dumb-shaming people instead of coddling their ignorant asses.  If someone says something about a link between immunizations and autism, rather than calmly explaining how science shows no such link, we need to point and laugh and post videos on YouTube of them crying.  And it can't just be us.  That needs to become the norm.  Right now dumb is sexy and THAT is what needs to change.

(December 29, 2016 at 1:49 pm)Asmodee Wrote:

(December 28, 2016 at 2:56 pm)Secular Elf Wrote: Yes, sue people behind fake news and hold them accountable.  We are going to have to do more than just that though.  When people become so willing to believe a lie over a fact that facts do not matter to them anymore, you are going to have to do something that gets their attention and snap then out of it.  And when they refuse to snap out of it then you will have to do something more drastic.  They then become too dangerous for the survival of a society to continue to have around.

I suggest that what we need is for Progressives and Secular people to wake up, take these threats very seriously, and join together to form an anti-Conservative movement.  It should be a movement with attitude and teeth, and have more power and influence than the enemy.  Conservatism is that enemy.  It has become a threat to everyone, it is dangerous, and it needs to be put down.  I have ideas for the formation of this movement.  But it will never take off unless people are willing to do the work that is necessary to make it possible.

What we need now more than ever in the Progressive-Secular community is a discussion about exactly this. But we should not take too long.  Time is ticking and the Inauguration is around the corner.

That's some pretty radical thinking there in the first paragraph, and I certainly don't agree with it.  People, unfortunately but necessarily, have a right to be stupid if they choose to.  We do need some laws to protect the rest of us from mass-supidity, but that's easier said than done.  Even if you could get such laws passed, you would have to spell out each possible stupidity and how we are protected from it.  That would have to be written by a bunch of lawyers, who take pride in the cleverness of the loopholes in the documents they prepare and finding the loopholes in the documents others have prepared.  You would have to remove the human element from it completely, so even an ass like Scalia couldn't re-interpret it to say what he wanted it to say.  This is essentially impossible.
What you need instead is a massive public education campaign.  We need to start dumb-shaming people instead of coddling their ignorant asses.  If someone says something about a link between immunizations and autism, rather than calmly explaining how science shows no such link, we need to point and laugh and post videos on YouTube of them crying.  And it can't just be us.  That needs to become the norm.  Right now dumb is sexy and THAT is what needs to change.

here here idiots need this

(December 29, 2016 at 1:55 pm)Orochi Wrote:

(December 29, 2016 at 1:49 pm)Asmodee Wrote: That's some pretty radical thinking there in the first paragraph, and I certainly don't agree with it.  People, unfortunately but necessarily, have a right to be stupid if they choose to.  We do need some laws to protect the rest of us from mass-supidity, but that's easier said than done.  Even if you could get such laws passed, you would have to spell out each possible stupidity and how we are protected from it.  That would have to be written by a bunch of lawyers, who take pride in the cleverness of the loopholes in the documents they prepare and finding the loopholes in the documents others have prepared.  You would have to remove the human element from it completely, so even an ass like Scalia couldn't re-interpret it to say what he wanted it to say.  This is essentially impossible.
What you need instead is a massive public education campaign.  We need to start dumb-shaming people instead of coddling their ignorant asses.  If someone says something about a link between immunizations and autism, rather than calmly explaining how science shows no such link, we need to point and laugh and post videos on YouTube of them crying.  And it can't just be us.  That needs to become the norm.  Right now dumb is sexy and THAT is what needs to change.

here here idiots need this

I loathe anime entirely, but that was hilarious.

(December 28, 2016 at 5:34 pm)Tonus Wrote: There is no law in the USA which would grant the President such power, nor is there the kind of political and economic upheaval that Germany was dealing with at the time.

There wasn't such a law in Germany either. It was a constitutional ammendment which declared several articles of the constitution to be void and granted the government special powers.

More so, then. Getting an amendment passed or revoked in the USA is a long and difficult process, and any attempt to introduce one to centralize power would die quickly. Blue states wouldn't want to give Trump an inch, and red states would just as soon flip the federal government the finger if it asked for any additional power. And that's assuming that we think that Trump is both politically savvy and unexpectedly clever.

Quote:Bernie got people voting,

Um, Bernie got people whining.  Let's remember that he lost the Democratic Primary Popular Vote by 12%.

(December 29, 2016 at 9:53 pm)Tonus Wrote: More so, then.  Getting an amendment passed or revoked in the USA is a long and difficult process, and any attempt to introduce one to centralize power would die quickly.  Blue states wouldn't want to give Trump an inch, and red states would just as soon flip the federal government the finger if it asked for any additional power.  And that's assuming that we think that Trump is both politically savvy and unexpectedly clever.

President can always invoke his royal perogative (yes, yes, I know it's not caaled that in the US), as has been increasingly happening.

(December 28, 2016 at 2:56 pm)Secular Elf Wrote: Hitler was elected by the German People, a small margin mind you, but he was fairly elected.  We all know, or should know at least, how that turned out.

No, he wasn't. He was appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg, as required by the Constitution of the Weimar Republic.

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(December 28, 2016 at 2:56 pm)Secular Elf Wrote: Conservatism is that enemy.  It has become a threat to everyone, it is dangerous, and it needs to be put down.  I have ideas for the formation of this movement.  But it will never take off unless people are willing to do the work that is necessary to make it possible.

And just how do you propose dealing with conservatives? Round them up and put them in camps? What do you mean when you write, "needs to be put down"? Short of unConstitutional measures, I doubt you'll be able to do anything, and you'll have to settle for simply trying to change their minds.

I'm glad for that, myself; and I'm glad that there are people across the political spectrum here in America. I shudder at the thought of homogenized thought, and think a plurality of viewpoints best serves this country.